Muriel del Sevilla FC ante la AS Roma
The Club

SEVILLA FC AND AS ROMA: EXCEPTIONS IN A RING OF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE SUPERPOWERS

05/04/2018
According to a KPMG study, the Rome side and Sevilla break with the trend of European financial superpowers that thrive in Europe's elite club competition. Montella's side side also overcame the most financially endowed team in the world to pass to the quarter-finals

Sevilla FC have already proved time and again improbable does not mean impossible but that doesn't mean what it has achieved in recent seasons has been simple. In professional sport, it has been increasingly true that the most successful Clubs are global financial superpowers and that Clubs striving to compete will find it increasingly hard to do it on sporting merit alone. A lot has changed in football since sixty years ago, when Sevilla reached the quarter-finals of a Champions League last. 

Though, as in life, money may not be everything in football, history is showing that helps a lot. For the very same reason, the results of a study by prestigious auditor KPMG put Sevilla's achievements this season into even greater perspective.

In modern times, it's close to impossible to compete at the top level without significant financial weight

According to KPMG, six of the eight surviving teams in the UEFA Champions League can claim a place in the amongst the ten most valuable teams in the world. The two exceptions are Sevilla FC (who rank 27th most valuable in the world) and AS Roma (18th most valuable), who dwarfed in financial terms by their competitors, overcame all logic and expectations by eliminating financial giants to reach the quarter-finals. In Sevilla's case, defeating the greatest financial giant of them all in Manchester United. 

It was also shown that Sevilla - this time a long way off Roma - have the lowest squad value of all eight teams still in the competition. With surviving teams now spending upwards of €100,000,000 on one player alone, this should come as no surprise when Sevilla's more responsible model of reinvestment has meant a more modest turnover in recent years. Even social media numbers show a clear gap: three million followers worldwide for Sevilla, 13 million for AS Roma, 215 million for Real Madrid and 214 million for Barcelona. 

In that regard, the magnitude of Sevilla's heroic Champions League campaign cannot be exaggerated. We may be competing in a ring of giants but we're more than holding our own with the modest resources at our disposition.